Why is it important?

Seriously, why do you need to know stuff about your buyers? Why can’t you just create a store and add items and wait for sales?

Because you will have no sales in this case.

In drop shipping, your commercial success is defined by your marketing strategy by about 75%.

And how on Earth are you going to plan your marketing efforts if you know nothing about your potential buyer?

When you have a picture of your average customers, you can:

Understand their needs and wants

Think of your value for them

Create a strong marketing message that is appealing for your clients

Find the relevant marketing and advertising channels

So what do you need to know about your target customers?

1. What do they have in common?

One of the most awesome things about drop shipping business is its global reach.

It means that you’re not necessarily limited by any geographical boundaries. You may choose some specific country or region to work with, but a customer can actually come from any point on the globe.

And the whole nature of online stores means that ANYONE can get interested in your offers and place an order. Their occupation, gender, age, marital status, etc. can be strikingly different.

In other words, your customer can potentially turn out to be a stay-at-home mother of two from Moscow, or a 19-year-old student riding a wheelchair in San Francisco, or a retired construction site worker from Beijin, or…well, you see the point.

What is the feature that BOTH unites them AND makes them your target audience?

Is it some special part of their lifestyle? Their hobby? Their musical taste or a preference in video games? The gadgets they use, or a TV show they watch?

2. What are their needs?

So, you’ve determined that you will be mostly targeting iPhone users who like The Walking Dead series.

Or maybe the people who are thinking of starting their video blogging journey.

Or maybe Muslim women interested in fashion and following the newest trends.

Or whoever else.

Now it’s time to answer a really important question: what is the reason for them to buy the items you offer?

In other words, what is their need?

The iPhone user might be looking for a phone case demonstrating their passion and uniting them with other fans of the series.

The video blogger-to-be might be looking for cheap yet durable tripods to hold their gadgets in due place during the recording.

The Muslim woman might be looking for ways to bring a bit of diversity into her clothes and to find a Western-style item that matches the religious norms she follows.

Well, you got the idea.

Yes, that’s complicated.

But the answer to this question leads us to the following one:

3. Can you meet their needs?

So, you’ve found out who might be the people interested in your drop shipping niche, and why exactly they are looking for these particular items.

Now it’s time to think IF you can offer them the thing(s) they need and want so badly.

As a drop shipping store owner, you heavily rely on your suppliers. They are your starting point when you start thinking of creating a webstore.

This is why it will be necessary for you to find out if the needs of your target audience can be met with your resources.

For example, if you do drop shipping with AliExpress, you need to make sure that the items shown on platform suit your customers’ needs. Otherwise, if your store doesn’t provide any help or solution to your customers, what’s the point?

4. Can these people buy your items spontaneously?

This question mostly refers to your customers’ purchasing power.

Can they actually afford these items or they need to save money first?

Can it be an impulse purchase or your potential buyers need to think about it for some time?

You can’t advertise your products as something that can be bought in a blink of an eye if this purchase requires some planning first. At the same time, you can’t refer to a simple and cheap item as to a ‘grand and life-changing gain’.

5. What language do they speak?

Not literally (though it’s obviously important to have the right mix of languages in your store).

What exactly do your customers type into Google search bar when they are looking for stuff to buy online?

How do they phrase their search queries?

What words and expressions do they value the most when they read product descriptions and advertisements?

6. How can you reach them?

To plan your marketing strategy in the most efficient way, you need to know where exactly do your potential clients ‘hang out’.

Which social networks do they use most actively? Which blogs and news’ websites do they read? Who are their favorite video bloggers?

This is how you will find out where to post your advertisements and achieve the biggest reach.

When you know which social networks you can use for promotion, it gets much easier for you to manage the whole set of the marketing activities. Instead of doing all the job manually, you can go for automated drop shipping solutions in order to save your time and energy.

7. How can you target them?

This question logically follows the previous one.

As soon as you determine the most suitable channels for promotion, you need to understand how exactly you will segment the audience of this channel.

It’s not that difficult, actually – when you choose the settings for your Instagram Ads campaign, for example, you can specify quite a narrow viewers’ segment. The same goes for advertising campaigns in the majority of other social networks.